Considered to be one of the great Nordic symphonies of its time, Wilhelm Stenhammar's Symphony No. 2 in G minor was a long time in the making. Stenhammar the conductor and pianist was a leading figure in the musical life of Sweden and Scandinavia, but in his role as composer he struggled with self-doubt, feeling that his knowledge of musical theory was insufficient. In 1910 he decided to address this perceived shortcoming, and began an intensive study of counterpoint which included setting himself several thousand assignments over the following decade. At the same time, between 1911 and 1915, Stenhammar composed his G minor symphony, and against this background it is hardly surprising that it displays his preoccupation with counterpoint, its final movement a grandiose double fugue. If the symphony is one of Stenhammar’s most celebrated works, his music for Strindberg’s A Dream Play is one of the least-known. It was composed for a production of Strindberg’s existential drama in 1916, a year after the completion of the Symphony. Rarely performed after that, the music was arranged into a concert version in 1970 by Hilding Rosenberg. Christian Lindberg and the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra have previously recorded Stenhammar’s Serenade to critical acclaim.

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REVIEW:

Lindberg’s reading of the 2nd Symphony moves with the sense of urgency Stenhammar most assuredly had in mind. The Andante lilts, the Scherzo swings, and he wisely keeps the busy contrapuntal finale bustling along. This glorious release should not be missed.

– Gramophone

If there is one Swedish composer in the early 20th century who in some way can compare with Sibelius and Nielsen, it is Wilhelm Stenhammar - incidentally a personal friend of both these towering figures in Nordic music. And in Stenhammar's production - which includes songs, piano music and large-scale orchestral works - his string quartets form a special chapter. The seven quartets (of which one, in F minor, was withdrawn by the composer soon after its first performance) were written over the space of 22 years, and mirror Stenhammar's development, from full-blown Romanticism to a more sparse and formally concentrated idiom. As a pianist, Stenhammar worked closely for many years with the Aulin Quartet, the finest Swedish string quartet of its time. (It was the Aulin Quartet that gave the first performances of all Stenhammar's quartets up to and including No.4 in A minor, Op.25.) His familiarity with the medium is evident in these works which have been described as 'the most important written between those of Brahms and Bartók', but which still remain less well-known internationally than they deserve. In a bid to change this, the Stenhammar Quartet here present the first disc in a trilogy which will include the six quartets published during the composer's lifetime, as well as the F minor quartet - for the first time on disc - and other music for string quartet. Making its first appearance on BIS, the Stenhammar Quartet was formed in 2002 and has made a name for itself in Sweden and internationally as interpreters of Stenhammar's music, as well as of core repertoire and contemporary works.

The great Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar can be heard as accompanist on recordings with John Forsell, and as soloist on a few piano rolls, but never as conductor. However, his successor, Tor Mann was recorded while rehearsing and performing the famous 2nd symphony, and the Serenade, works he himself experienced under the composer's baton as an orchestral cellist. Sixten Eckerberg succeeded Tor Mann, and together with the Gothenburg Symphony and pianist Hans Leygraf, he made the world premiere gramophone records of Stenhammar's important orchestral works. This release explores Stenhammer's heritage through these historical recordings.

"By chance, been enaged to a small pupil in Richard Andersson's music school in the autumn of 1891. Her name was Signe. Result: Gillet på Solhaug. In his autobiogrpahical sketch from the early 1920's, Wilhelm Stenhammar summarizes, in this way, the origin of the opera Gillet på Solhaug. He was twenty-one years old when he starts the work, but what experience did have have of larger music drama? Stenhammar embraced his inexperience and got to work. One can very well see Stenhammar's Gillet as one of many Nordic endeavors to link the Wagnerian music drama with the national romantic tradition.

Between 1894 and 1916 Wilhelm Stenhammar composed a total of seven string quartets, of which one (F minor, 1897) was withdrawn immediately after its first performance. In Scandinavian music of its time, this series of quartets is unique both in its consistency and in its musical aspirations. Taking its name from the composer, the Stenhammar Quartet with this recording signs off on the first ever complete traversal of the cycle on CD. (The only other previous cycle was recorded in the 1980's by three different ensembles, and did not include the then still unpublished F minor quartet.)

On this final disc, the Stenhammar Quartet performs the Swedish composer’s first two attempts in the genre. The C Major Quartet was composed only a few months after Stenhammar had made a sensational breakthrough with his Op.1, the piano concerto in B flat minor which he himself had premièred as soloist with the orchestra of the Royal Opera in Stockholm. But already two years earlier he had begun a close collaboration with the Aulin String Quartet, and it was for this ensemble that he composed his first quartet, as well as the following four. Like the piano concerto, the C major quartet is influenced by Brahms, whose quartets Stenhammar had been studying, and may to some extent be regarded as a highly promising apprentice work in the genre. In contrast, the String Quartet No.2 in C minor, written just two years later, represents a more independent approach, with a highly imaginative treatment of themes and motifs.

REVIEW:

The Stenhammars conclude the first-ever complete cycle of their namesake's quartets on disc with characteristically energetic and well-explored readings of his first two essays in the genre.

– Gramophone

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Wilhelm Stenhammar’s Serenade is unquestionably an orchestral masterpiece, one of two that he wrote (the other being the Second Symphony), and this remains its finest recording. Järvi remade the work for DG, and very well too, with this same orchestra, but as is so often the case the second effort doesn’t quite measure up to the initial outing. In the first place, this performance includes the “Reverenza” movement that Stenhammar later deleted. It’s a charming minuet, and since it’s followed by the Canzonetta, a slow waltz, it’s easy to understand why he decided, however reluctantly, to leave it out. I’m not entirely sure it fits here as the second movement–that means a lot of slow music between the opening Overture and the Scherzo–but it’s still good to have and you can always just skip it if the result turns out to be boring in your opinion.

Second, Järvi offers the most exciting and rambunctious performance of the Scherzo yet recorded. This movement really can and should be a virtuoso extravaganza, and here it has a huge impact, assisted in no small degree by some of the best recorded sound that BIS ever managed in Gothenburg. The rich bass, wide dynamic range, and superb balances permit Järvi and his players to let it rip in thrilling fashion. Add to that a lovely, flowing Notturno and a meaty, muscular finale and the result is one of the glories of the BIS catalog. The Serenade has been lucky on disc, and has received a striking number of fine recordings, but this is the one to own to get to know the work.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Carl Stenhammar (1871-1927) trained as a pianist, and Brahms’s epic D minor Concerto held no fears for him. His writing for the instrument is accordingly bold and heroic from the outset, as his G minor Sonata from 1890 demonstrates. Held together by Wagnerian leitmotifs but often drawn into Schumannesque dreaming, the four-movement Sonata wears Austro-German passion on its sleeve, and Brahms continued to be a clear influence on Stenhammar’s piano writing in the three Fantasies Op.11 from 1895, but the harmonies are now clearer and more limpid, in the manner of Chopin but also singing with a more native Swedish or at least Nordic accent. Still more Franco-Russian in idiom are the Three Small Pieces from the same year, in the spirit of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces and Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, each distilling Stenhammar’s individual melodic style within a minute or two. The high point of his solo piano output – as distinct from the mighty Second Piano Concerto which has found a place on the fringes of the Romantic repertoire – is reached with the Late Summer Nights Op.33, a five-movement cycle of concise tone-pictures which ventures into speculative harmonic realms like Fauré’s late Nocturnes, demanding the most refined of responses from the pianist. The Italian pianist Paolo Scafarella is fast becoming a Stenhammar specialist. He has been engaged to record the concertos with the Orchestra Filarmonica Campana in Pagani, near Naples, and he performs in the major halls of his native country. This release marks his debut on Piano Classics.

It's the Viking era. The hero Angantyr has fallen. In his grave, he has taken with him the magical sword Tirfing, a sword that never misses to kill the enemy. His daughter Hervor needs the sword to protect herself from the cruel world of the Vikings. From his grave, Angantyr, who had no sons, demands that his daughter forever must appear as a man in order to retrieve and use the sword. Hervor dresses as the warrior Hervardur, receives the sword, which makes him/her an always unbeatable hero on the battlefields. However, the disguise will eventually prove to be her undoing. A love triangle develops between Hervardur and Vidar, "his" brother-in-arms who, in his way, is in love with Hervor/Hervardur, and Vidar's sister Gullv�g, who has fallen in love with the hero Hervardur, not knowing that he, in fact, is a woman. Gullv�g is courted by the three kings Gestur, Svasur, and Harald. Encouraged by her father, King Gudmundur, Gullv�g asks three riddles to be solved by the courting cavaliers. She will marry the one who can solve them all. But she is, in fact, in love with Hervardur, who succeeds in solving the riddles to Gullv�g's joy. However, Hervardur must (for obvious reasons) reject Gullv�g, which makes Vidar furious, meaning that this is an unforgivable insult to his family. He therefore challenges Hervardur to a duel, whereupon he is killed by the invincible sword Tirfing. Hervardur is proclaimed an outlaw by King Gudmundur. Brokenhearted, Hervardur tells Gullv�g of her true origin and once again seeks out her father's grave, returns the sword Tirfing, and dies.

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